Devices, such as electronic devices, and particularly electronic payment devices (for example, so-called “smart cards” having integrated circuit chips) may be useful for a variety of payment and other applications. In chip based payment products, the total funds available to the cardholder can either be located on the card, which is ideal for off-line purchases, or can be located on the payment provider's (e.g., the Issuer's) server, which is ideal for on-line purchases. However, depending on where the funds are located, some functionality may not be available. For example, a preauthorized off-line card balance cannot be used for telephone or internet purchases. An on-line balance may not be ideal at merchant locations that cannot support high speed on-line authorizations or where fast throughput requirements favor offline transactions (for example, the entrance to a transit system such as an underground, metro, subway, or the like).
Such products may accordingly split any funds available between the on-line and off-line balances, in which case the whole balance may not be available for a particular transaction, and the cardholder may not understand why. If the total funds available are significant (e.g. >$1000), the cardholder is unlikely to perceive an issue; however for cards where only limited funds are available (e.g. <$50), the issue may be more significant.
Heretofore, for cards supporting the two balances, the level of preauthorized offline balance is fixed by the Issuer, typically at the same level across an entire portfolio. When the card is involved in an online transaction via the contact interface, the offline counters are reset (effectively topping up the preauthorized offline balance to the predetermined fixed value), provided that sufficient overall funds are available. In most cases (typically essential with prepaid cards), the portion of the total balance available with the online balance is decreased by an equivalent amount. As the card is then used in an offline environment, the available preauthorized offline balance is depleted until an online transaction via the contact interface is undertaken, resetting the balance to the predetermined fixed value.
With regard to the aforementioned offline counters, the skilled artisan will appreciate that in at least some instances, in the case of a bank card, a value is not truly held on the card as was historically done with an electronic purse such as Mondex® products (registered mark of Mondex International Limited, 47-53 Cannon Street London UNITED KINGDOM EC4M 5SQ). Rather, the counter represents an amount of money which the card has the ability to spend without going online to the issuer; as such, this amount is a pre-authorized amount. Normally, with a bank card, in order to spend money, it is necessary to have the transaction authorized by going online to communicate with the issuer of the card. The offline counters give the card the ability to spend offline a predetermined amount. Typically, offline counters may include multiple counters; for example, one or more counters representing value and one or more counters representing a number of transactions that can be made offline. The offline counters thus represent a number of security features on the card (typically counters which count down)—for example, the counters may be such that $50 of offline spending, or ten offline transactions, whichever is reached first, cause the card to go back online.